


Keep Swinging

by ooinugirloo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Human Alpha Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:47:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2117355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooinugirloo/pseuds/ooinugirloo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three things that Stiles never expects to happen in his lifetime.<br/>1. Lydia Martin to notice him.<br/>2. Jackson Whittemore to be anything other than the douchebag he loves to hate.<br/>3. Life in Beacon Hills to be exciting.<br/>Needless to say, he is proven wrong on all counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Swinging

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt: "S1 AU. A different alpha comes to BH before Peter can lure Laura, and he becomes alpha that way. To gain more power and to prepare for the alpha pack, Peter goes on a biting spree. Some turn, but many more die, which is what eventually draws Laura and Derek back. Meanwhile, some members of Peter's mostly unwilling pack have been plotting to overthrow him, and the arrival of the two new Hales proves to be a great opportunity."
> 
> Lots of offscreen character death, and no Argents, they're hanging out in France or something. I wrote this whole thing in a sort of manic haze, so in all likelihood I'll be going back and changing or adding bits of it as soon as I have a few seconds to rub together. Enjoy! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

A man stands on the crest of a hill, bathed in cool moonlight. His head is tipped back, nostrils flaring as he pulls in deep breaths of night air. The forest below him is silent in the sights of the predator. He shifts, foot brushing up against one of the bodies at his feet, dark skin gone waxy and pale in death, blood still glistening on his torn throat. “Alan,” the man sighs, crouching next to the body. “You always were far too trusting. Don’t worry, though—I consider your debt repaid.” Rising, he turns his attention from the forest to the lights of the town in the distance. He blinks, eyes flashing the color of fresh blood, and smiles, sharp and mirthless. “Beacon Hills,” he murmurs, “My, my. It has been a very long time.”

X

Stiles is _bored_.

That’s where it all starts, really. Every harebrained scheme that’s ever been conceived of either came from boredom or heroism, and there’re no damsels around for Stiles to save, so that only leaves one option. Two cans of Red Bull leave him jittery, drumming his fingers on his keyboard, bouncing his knee under his desk, hoping for something interesting to come along and save his brain from doing the mental equivalent of donuts in the parking lot of his mind. Gnawing absently on the pen in his mouth, Stiles reaches for the police scanner behind his laptop and fiddles with the dial, running through the frequencies he’s long since memorized.

He’s worried, in the sort of abstract way that he has been since his mother died and his father crawled into a bottle of Jack Daniels for a few months, about his dad being on the night shift. There’ve been some weird reports lately—deer found looking like they’d been mauled by animals that haven’t been seen in northern California for years, decades. Strange human-looking silhouettes deep in the Preserve, but moving in ways that no human could. Animals behaving strangely, skittish, quiet, as though there was something dangerous in the trees. His dad tries to keep it from him, but there’s no real way to hide the unusual in a town the size of Beacon Hills, and this was far more than just a dumb jogger off the path.

There’s a mandatory curfew now—something that chafes at Stiles, regardless of how practical it is—anyone under the age of 18 must not be out after 10PM, everyone must be home, tucked away, by midnight. Of course, Stiles thinks uncharitably, law enforcement officers don’t have to abide by the curfew. They’re out risking their necks until dawn—protect and serve, and all that. The boy huffs, flicking through the channels on his scanner again, taking comfort in the familiar, uneventful, crackling of static.

“—got a 419 in the Preserve, all free units report to the scene, over.”

The pen clatters to the desktop as Stiles’s jaw drops and he pushes back from the desk explosively, nearly toppling over. “Oh my god,” he mutters to himself in a low voice, patting down his jeans to find his phone. Pulling it out, only fumbling it once or twice in his excitement, Stiles hits speed dial 2 and fidgets, waiting impatiently for his friend to pick up. A minute later, the phone rings out, switching to the perky, pre-recorded tones of ‘Hey! This is Scott! Sorry I missed you, try calling back!’ Stiles scowls and jams the phone back in his pocket, pulling on a hoodie before storming out of his bedroom and clattering down the stairs and out the front door. Finally, something _interesting_ was happening.

X

Twenty minutes later found a lowly whining Scott in the passenger seat of the Jeep, bemoaning his friendship with Stiles. ‘Dude’ was the most common word, closely followed by ‘lacrosse’ and ‘sleep’. Stiles rolls his eyes, taking one hand off the wheel to punch Scott in the shoulder, smirking at the low yelp when he connects.

“Scott, man, seriously. _Bodies in the Preserve_. Do I really have to tell you how cool this is?”

“I don’t think it’s cool,” Scott mutters, slouching down in his seat. “Y’know what I think would be cool? Making first line.”

Stiles sighs deeply, pulling off the road and cutting the engine. “C’mon, Scotty. Just an hour. Half an hour. I just want to take a look.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, popping open his door and hopping out onto the grass, flashlight in hand. The sound of the passenger side door opening and shutting echoes in the night air and Stiles smiles, jogging into the trees with Scott in tow.

X

“It’s been twenty-eight minutes!” Scott calls out unhelpfully from several feet behind Stiles’s left shoulder. He’s wheezing slightly and Stiles immediately slows to a stop, curiosity tempered by concern.

“Yeah, alright, I guess it was pretty unlikely that we were gonna find anything anyway.” Stiles throws an arm across Scott’s shoulders, spinning them back around towards where they came from. He started walking, eyes on Scott more than the ground. “We may as well head ba—” Stiles’s foot lodges under something—a tree root?—and he releases Scott to flail as he overbalances. He lands hard on his palms and knees, feels the skin of his hands give against rocks and sharps sticks beneath him. Wincing, Stiles draws back, only to run into the same obstacle that tripped him the first time, feeling less and less like a tree root the more Stiles flails. Taking deep breaths, Stiles pulls his phone out of his pocket—grimacing when it jostles his torn palms unpleasantly—and pulls up his flashlight app, turning the screen towards the ground in front of him. Scott had backed away when Stiles fell, trying not to get dragged down himself, and is several feet away now, and gasps, in the perfect spot to see what Stiles has just illuminated.

 _Bodies,_ Stiles thinks numbly. _We found the bodies._ They’re gruesome, slashed up and bloody, torn skin hanging in strips, and Stiles feels queasy, closes his eyes for a second. All he hears is Scott’s soft gasp followed by a gust of displaced air before he’s turning, staring at the largest, most feral-looking wolf he’s ever seen. But no, it’s not a wolf, not quite—wolves don’t get as big as small horses and there haven’t been wolves in California for hundreds of years, Stiles thinks dazedly, struggling to focus on anything but the sight of the huge set of jaws clamped unforgivingly on Scott’s side. The wolf— _thing_ , _creature_ , _monster_ , Stiles thinks, savagely—releases Scott and jumps back, looking to make a second pass. Before he can think, Stiles launches himself in front of Scott—who, at this point, has passed out; Stiles is betting on the cause being shock more than blood loss, which can only be a good sign at this point—refusing to let the _thing_ touch him again without a fight. 

At this point, Stiles knows that he and Scott are both utterly fucked, that they’re going to get eviscerated and then probably eaten, but he feels oddly detached. He stands there in front of Scott, arms raised, legs spread, heart ironically steady as it’s ever been, and thinks—in the somewhat hysterical way that one does, when confronting a literal creature of your nightmares—‘My, what big teeth it has.’ 

X

The scent of fresh blood would’ve alerted him to the presence of fresh prey in his territory if all of their shouting and crashing through the underbrush hadn’t already done it. He inhales the scent of _energy_ and _youth_ and _possibility_ and licks his maw absently, padding silently through the trees. He tracks them as they stumble nearly all the way to the house in the middle of the woods, the crumbling relic that even after all these years still smells of charcoal and death. He snarls silently and bounds into the clearing his prey are in, lips already drawn back from his fangs. The one standing is the closer target, and he locks his jaws on the boy’s side before he can draw breath to scream. He bears the boy down with him to the ground before releasing him and darting back, sizing up the second one. He knows that he’s been seen—the second boy is staring right at him, heart pumping like a rabbit’s—and waits for the customary scream or flailing attempt at escape. The second boy does neither. He tenses and jumps, but not at or away from the monster before him, in front of the boy it had bitten.  He stands, knees knocking, and stays there even as the beast prowls closer.

The boy isn’t moving. That is the first thing the man recognizes, when coming back from the wolf. He isn’t running— _prey_ —and isn’t fighting— _predator_ —he’s just…standing. No, he muses, eyes flickering to the labored wheezes coming from the ground behind the boy, _shielding_. The man inhales, wolf still strong and bloodthirsty just beneath his skin, smells the faint ozone tinge of magic, the peaty musk of teenage boy, and the softly decomposing undertone of humanity. He licks his lips, tasting salt and copper, tracks the scent back to the labored breathing on the forest floor. Eyes locked on the standing boy he paces, hackles raised and teeth bared, looking to unnerve him, but he stands, steadfast. The man comes closer, still half-shifted, claws tearing great furrows into the leaf litter below him, and yet still the boy does not move. The man stalks all the way into the boy’s space, stilling with bare inches between them and snarls, a threat and a challenge. The boy’s shoulders tighten, muscles bunching with the effort of keeping still, but still he holds the man’s eyes, unclenching his jaw long enough to whisper _“Not I, not I.”_ before going silent again. A long-forgotten joke, a children’s tale, suddenly surfaces in the man’s memory: _‘who’s afraid of the big, bad, wolf?’_ little voices giggle. He suddenly, painfully, becomes human again, backhanding the boy and knocking him out in one motion. He catches the boy, lowering him to the ground next to his friend. “Oh, I _like_ you.” He croons, turning the boy’s head so that the back of his neck is exposed. Extending the claws on both hands, he plunges them into the necks of both boys, taking their memories of the night. “But don’t worry, Little Red,” he whispers into the silence of the forest, “we’ll meet again soon.”

X

Stiles wakes up with a pounding headache, unclear memories of the night before, and a pervasive sense of dread. Wincing, he levers himself off of his bed— _when did he go to bed? Why was he on top of the covers?_ —and stands, teetering for a moment as he finds his balance. Shuffling across the hall to the bathroom, he rubs at his eyes blearily, flicking on the light and glancing in the mirror, only to do a double take at the huge bruise high on his cheekbone. Prodding it, (and immediately jerking his fingers back and hissing, because that _hurts_!) Stiles wracks his brain for anything in his memory that could have caused such a mark. He’d skipped lacrosse practice the day before—though it’s not likely he’d forget getting hit in the _face_ at practice—and the mark is too fresh to have happened any earlier.  Eventually he decides that his reflection isn’t going to yield any answers he shucks his clothes and gets into the shower, wincing as the water stings his palms. Looking down, he finds the heels of his hands scraped raw, pebbles and dirt still embedded in the cuts. Stiles’s heart kicks into overdrive, temples throbbing as he tries again to remember anything after doing his homework last night. Nothing. He faintly recalls his police scanner, and…Scott? But that makes his head starts hurting so badly he feels faint so he crouches, putting his head between his knees, trying not to vomit or pass out. Stiles tries to stop thinking at that point, scrubbing his hair and finishing his shower on autopilot, barely daring to open his eyes while toweling off and throwing clothes on, afraid of triggering that awful, searing headache again.

Grabbing his bag and stumbling down the stairs, Stiles manages to heave himself into his Jeep and drive to school, half in a daze, thankfully not causing a major traffic accident on the way. Scott is already at his locker when he gets there, leaning heavily on the wall and looking even more strung out than Stiles feels. At the sight of his best friend’s face, images flash across Stiles’s mind, almost too fast for him to make sense of. He sees Scott, on the ground, and a blur of black and a flash of red, and then there’s nothing but pain and darkness.

When Stiles next opens his eyes, it is to the featureless white tile and painful florescent lighting of the nurse’s office. Squinting against the harsh glare, he turned his head to the side, coming face-to-face with the crown of his best friend’s head. “Scott?” The head lifts and Scott’ worried eyes latch instantly onto Stiles’s own. “Something’s up with us, buddy.” Stiles croaks, throat feeling like sandpaper. Scott winces as though Stiles had screamed in his face, when really he barely managed a whisper. “Everything’s too loud,” Scott says through gritted teeth. “I can hear _everything_.” Stiles frowns, propping himself up against the uncomfortable metal headboard. “What do you mean by ‘everything’?”

Scott throws his hands up, frustrated. “I mean _everything_ , Stiles! I can hear your heart beating and your lungs working and your blood flowing through your body! I can hear the nurse chewing gum in her office, and the freshmen gossiping in the hallway! I can hear Harris lecturing about goddamn pH levels, and I can hear the traffic going by outside--I hear _everything_!”

Stiles sits frozen, eyes wide as he takes in the unnatural gold color that his friend’s normally brown eyes have turned. Stiles feels his heart speed up and sweat break out on his forehead. Scott snarls at that, grabbing Stiles’s arms, hands feeling like vices around his biceps.  “Scott—” Stiles tries, feeling sharper-than-human nails pressing dangerously tight against his skin, breathing shallowly and trying not to panic. At the sound of his voice, Scott whines, high and wounded, and Stiles feels most of his fear slip away. “Scott,” he whispers, slowly moving his arms to reciprocally grab Scott’s forearms, “It’s okay, buddy, we’re gonna figure this out. Don’t worry, I’m gonna help you. I’m not going anywhere, I’m in this with you, okay?” Scott slowly stopped gripping so tightly, tension leaching out of him in increments. When Stiles stopped feeling the needle-points of claws against his skin he moved, tilting Scott’s chin up from where it had dropped against his chest. Scott’s familiar brown eyes looked back at him, no hint of unearthly gold, and Stiles smiles, trying to erase the look of misery from his friend’s face. “There we go, that’s better, yeah? It’s a good thing Mrs. Wilson is so preoccupied by her romance paperbacks or you might’ve been the first kid in history to be prescribed Saltines and bed rest to cure lycanthropy.” Scott chokes out a watery laugh, drawing Stiles into an almost desperate hug. Stiles hugs back just as fiercely, not drawing apart until Mrs. Wilson wanders into the room several minutes later.

X

Neither Stiles nor Scott have a track record of going home sick from school, so the nurse dismisses them with a minimum of fuss, even agreeing not to call their parents when they promise to go straight home to Nurse McCall. They do go to Scott’s house, but Mrs. McCall is at the hospital, so they raid the fridge and then retire to Scott’s room, as usual. Flopping down on his bed, Scott groans. “Ugh, shit, now I’m starting to _smell_ stuff. This sucks _so_ much.” Stiles dropped down into the desk chair, spinning himself around.

“Wait, so the smelling’s new? You woke up with super-hearing, but the nose is only now coming online?” Scott fidgets uncomfortably for a minute before answering. “Yeah, I guess?” He grabs fistfuls of his coverlet, twisting them. “Did you really mean it earlier when you said something about...lycanthropy?”

Stiles frowns, absently running his fingers over the livid bruise on his cheekbone. “I dunno, buddy, it just kinda came to mind. But you’ve got glowing eyes, claws, and super-senses; those are all basically standard werewolf features, you’ve gotta admit.”

Scott sighs gustily, casting a baleful glance at his best friend. Stiles rubs at his temples, a shade of his previous headache resurfacing. His head only started hurting when he tried to remember the night before, or thought about what was happening to Scott, and that made Stiles think that somehow someone had done something to him and blocked his memories. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the building pain and thought back to the last thing of last night he remembered—doing his homework—and concentrated, pushing against the suspicious blank in his memories.

_“—419 in the preserve—”_

_“I don’t think it’s cool.”_

_Darkness, crackling leaves, heavy breathing._

_Blood, bodies—_

_Black fur, red eyes, fangs, a **monster** —_

_We’re going to die—_

Stiles snaps back to the present with a choked gasp, feeling like he’s about to have a heart attack.

“Stiles!” Scott barks, for what does not seem to be the first time, looking concerned.

“Yeah,” Stiles manages, breathing shallowly, “yeah, I’m good—I just remembered what we did last night.”

X

It takes Stiles 20 minutes to convince Scott that he isn’t punking him, and even then he has to pry his be-clawed hand out of his comforter and wave it in his face before Scott toned down the skepticism.

“You’re saying I shouldn’t _have feelings_?” Scott looks at his friend like Stiles just suggested he cut his hand off.

“No, _you potato_ , what I _said_ was that I think the whole,” he bared his teeth and brought his hands up, fingers curled in an approximation of claws, “situation is triggered by strong feelings. Or your heart rate. Or adrenaline, or something—I don’t know—but it seems like you get furrier when you get freaked out.”

“But then what do I _do_?” Scott wails, face already starting to sprout fur as he grows agitated, “I can’t just control my feelings, or my heart!”

“Whoa, easy, buddy, we’ll figure it out. Maybe you should treat it like a panic attack? Try to focus all of your senses, all of your attention, on one thing. Pick one thing that’s familiar or calming or whatever and just only feel _that_ , instead of all the crazy wolfy stuff.”

Scott’s expression goes pinched as his ears elongate and the tips of fangs poke over his bottom lip. Stiles tries to sit still and quiet, letting Scott do whatever he needs to do. Slowly, so slowly Stiles thinks he’s imagining it at first, Scott’s features slip back to normal, brown eyes blinking open dazedly.

“I,” Scott begins hoarsely, clearing his throat, “I focused on your heartbeat. It worked.”

Stiles blinks and lets the words sink in, then launches himself onto the bed, tackling Scott in a hug. This kicks off a giddy pillow/tickle fight that lasts until both boys are completely breathless, collapsed on the bed. Stiles turns his head to look at Scott where he’s laid out next to him.

“We’re gonna be okay, Scotty.”

And Scott looks back, a small, genuine smile curving his lips. “Yeah, I think we are.”

X

It’s dark when Stiles next opens his eyes, jerked unpleasantly unto wakefulness.

“STILES!”

His father’s voice sounds worried—frantic—in a way that it normally isn’t, in a way that makes Stiles’s heart instantly kick into overdrive.

“Dad?” He calls back, rousing Scott who had been snoring beside him.

A few seconds later Stiles hears pounding on the stairs and Scott’s bedroom door flies open, hitting the wall with a bang. The Sheriff stands in the doorway for a minute, taking in the sight of Stiles and Scott blearily sitting up from the bed, sleep ruffled and confused. He heaves a great sigh and rushes forward, gathering his son in his arms.

“Dad?” Stiles repeats, hugging back because Stilinski men give excellent hugs, and his dad looks like he’s seen hell.

“God, kid, you scared me.”

“Whattya mean? ‘S not like this is the first time I’ve crashed at Scott’s.”

“No, but it’s the first time I’ve come home from the scene of a large-scale, fatal attack on teenagers in Beacon Hills to find my teenage son’s bed empty and sheets cold.”  

“What?!” Stiles jerks back, taking in the dark circles under his dad’s eyes and the worried wrinkles around his mouth. “What happened?”

The sheriff releases his son and sits back, shoulders slumping. “We don’t really know—all we know is that there was a noise complaint at the Martin’s place and when we got there it was a bloodbath. The kids looked like they’d been savaged by animals. And before that, we found two other kids in the woods, dead, bitten as well.”

“Bitten…” Stiles murmurs, wincing slightly at the renewed pain in his head.

“Y’know, son, it’s not often that I’m thankful that you don’t have a lot of friends, but I sure am grateful that you were just in with Scott tonight.” The Sheriff squeezes both Scott and Stiles to him in a quick hug before leaving the room, citing a need to call Mrs. McCall before she goes out of her mind with worry, having been on-call when all of the injured teenagers were wheeled in.

“Dude,” Scott says, wide-eyed, turning to face Stiles, “What the hell is going on?”

“I dunno, man,” Stiles replies, frowning, “but I intend to find out.”

X

The next morning finds Scott, Stiles, the Sheriff and Mrs. McCall all sitting uneasily around the McCall’s kitchen table—the Sheriff having slept on the couch, unwilling to leave Scott and Stiles alone.

“Dad,” Stiles ventures, breaking the uneasy silence, “Is anybody from yesterday…okay?”

“Kid, you know I’m not allowed to tell you about active investigations—”

 “John,” Melissa interrupts gently, “he’s going to find out when he goes to school, anyway.” She turns towards Stiles and Scott. “There were probably a dozen kids your age at that party last night, but of all of them, Lydia Martin is in a medically induced coma because she reacted negatively to whatever bit her, and Jackson Whittemore was a bit slashed up, but he’ll be fine. And the other two the police found in the parking lot of the ice rink, Vernon Boyd and Matt Daehler, both of them were dead.”

“Christ…” Stiles whispers, looking stricken. They eat the remainder of their meal in silence, the adults exchanging worried looks and Scott and Stiles hugging each other tightly at the door.

Stiles and his father drive home separately, and just give each other a hug before retreating to their respective rooms at home, a dark mood hanging over them. Stiles bums around, playing video games, taking dumb internet quizzes, scrolling through forums, trying to distract himself from the thought of kids his age getting slashed to death right in a suburban backyard. At around 4, Scott calls.

“Hey dude, my mom just got on shift and said that Lydia’s allowed visitors now. You wanna go?”

“You, Scott, are a prince among men,” Stiles replies, already shrugging into a hoodie and shoving his feet in his shoes. “I’ll see you in 10.”

Shoving his phone in his pocket, he ducks out of his room, calling down the hall towards his dad’s room.

“I’m going to hang out with Scott, Dad! I’ll be back later, but don’t wait up!”

“Alright,” he hears from inside the doorway, his father emerging a moment later and catching him in a hug. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Yeah, Dad. Don't worry.”

“That’s my job, twerp.”

Stiles wiggles out of the embrace and sticks his tongue out, clomping down the stairs and out the door.

X

Standing outside the door to Lydia’s room—private, of course—Stiles is overcome with a sudden bashfulness and stalls, scuffing his foot on the white linoleum.

“What if—I don’t think she’d want us here.” He says, hospital-quiet, to Scott.

Scott rolls his eyes, shouldering past him into the room. “Shut up, we’re visiting her in the hospital, not lurking outside her house.”

Inside is as blank and sterile as all hospitals are, white walls, white floor, white sheets. Lydia is nearly as pale as the bedding, her red hair standing out like a shock of flame on the pillowcase. Connected to her, the machines beep steadily, casting half of her face in an eerie green light. The rest of the room is still and quiet, the setting sun making the room shadowed. Scott and Stiles approach the bed, standing on the side away from the machinery.

“I hope she wakes up soon.” Stiles murmurs. Scott is just opening his mouth to voice his agreement when a feral-sounding snarl rips through the room, making both Scott and Stiles whip around in shock. Silhouetted in the doorway is Jackson Whittemore, eyes only visible because of their unnatural yellow shine.

“Oh fuck,” Stiles gulps, instinctively backing up. Scott, however, steps forward, shoulders hunching as his features become more animalistic, letting out a low growl himself.

“No, no, Scott, what are you doing? That is literally the last thing we need right now.” Stiles edges closer to his best friend, touching his elbow lightly. Scott’s growling turns down a notch and he stops posturing so aggressively, but still doesn’t take his eyes off of Jackson, who only seems to have gotten angrier the longer they stand there.

“Hey there, Jackson,” Stiles tries, giving up on inching past his best friend, because Scott is planted like a brick wall and isn’t letting him move any closer to the boy in the doorway. “Looks like that thing that bit Scott got you too, huh? Did he bite Lydia too?”

The snarling increases in volume and ferocity, glowing gold eyes flicking between the figure on the bed and the two boys as if judging the distance between them.

“Whoa, hey, alright,” Stiles says, stepping back and drawing Scott with him. “No problem, we aren’t here to hurt Lydia. We just wanted to make sure she was okay—and she _is_ ; you know that. Listen to her heart, you can hear it beating, can’t you?”

The chainsaw noises coming from Jackson’s throat had slowly died out as Stiles talked, and by the time he stopped they were both silent, Jackson visibly focusing in on Lydia’s heartbeat, features slowly reverting back to human normal. He stumbles farther into the room, hospital gown flapping around his knees.

“Stilinski…? McCall?” He manages weakly, looking and sounding confused and disoriented. Scott and Stiles step forward and help him into the chair by Lydia’s bed, exchanging a look over his head.

“Jackson,” Stiles starts, squatting down so that they’re more or less at eye level. “You’ve had a hell of a night. And you’re definitely going to think we’re crazy, but there’s something that Scott and I have to tell you.”

Jackson actually takes the news better than Scott did—only sitting in numb disbelief for around 10 minutes before looking over at Lydia and then back to Stiles, exhaling sharply.

“Well, _fuck._ ”

Scott and Stiles leave the hospital shortly thereafter—wanting to give Jackson some time to process—but exchange numbers first, promising to call if they find out anything.

“I never thought I’d see the day when I promised to call _Jackson Whittemore._ ” Stiles mutters to Scott, heading for the Jeep. Scott chuckles and bumps his shoulder companionably, climbing into the passenger seat.

X

The next few days pass largely without incident, Jackson comes back to school, nods at them in the hallway—Stiles fakes a heart attack the first time this happens. Jackson is not amused—and Stiles researches werewolves manically and obsessively. He tests out everything he reads on Scott to separate fact from fiction—for example, silver? Total myth. They put every piece of silver jewelry that Mrs. McCall owns on Scott and he didn’t even get a rash—and Scott gets better and better at controlling himself, not even so much as flashing his eyes when Stiles pops around a corner and scares him anymore.

The mauling of teenagers has continued unabated—the latest was Erica Reyes, a quiet, epileptic girl, found dead outside the hospital after one of her checkups. Stiles has never seen his father this strung-out, and it deepens his resolve to not reveal the whole ‘there’s a werewolf in Beacon Hills’ thing to him. The last thing he needs is the conviction that his son has gone off the deep end too.

School has just gotten out for the day, and Stiles and Scott convene with Jackson in the parking lot behind the school for their update on Lydia and anything else about werewolves that Stiles has worked out. Jackson has—ironically—mellowed out a lot since being turned into a creature of the night; Stiles muses that having an actual reason to have homicidal urges must’ve somehow cancelled out the fun of actually having them, making him at least 60% less of a douchebag. He and Stiles still snark and sneer at each other, but it’s not serious anymore—it’s hard not to feel sympathy for someone who you’ve seen shaking like a leaf, thinking they’re going out of their mind, and even Jackson seems to have realized that the tough guy persona wouldn’t fool Stiles after that. Jackson is turning towards his Porsche, delivering his customary parting punch to Stiles’s shoulder (still hard enough to bruise, the fucker, but considering the new werewolf strength, well within the bounds of “friendly” behavior,) when he suddenly hunches over, claws making long, jagged furrows in the Porsche’s paint.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the _hell_?” Stiles yelps, stepping towards him, only to hear an anguished whine from behind him. Whirling around, Stiles finds Scott’s eyes a luminous yellow, hands clutching at his temples, fangs digging into his lip and drawing blood.

“ _Scott?_ What the _hell_ is happening, dude?”

“It’s—” Scott bites out, struggling to shape words around his canines, “it’s the _Alpha_ ,” his eyes flare brighter at the word, pupils dilating. “He’s calling us.”

“The _alpha_??” Stiles splutters, wind-milling his arms around, “You mean that terrifying, asshole monster that bit you in the woods? Oh _hell_ no, _no_ , he does not just get to _call_ you like you’re his pets—fucking hang up or something, let him go to voicemail!”

“It’s in my _brain_ , Stiles—there isn’t a reject call button!”

Stiles frowns and puts his hands on Scott’s shoulders, wanting to help, when Scott relaxes unexpectedly, mouth gaping open and eyes blinking back to brown.

“Dude,” Scott breathes, “you, like, _muted_ him!”

“ _What?_ This whole thing is so fucking ridiculous.” Stiles mutters, “Jackson, c’mere!”

Looking like he’s wading through cement, Jackson stumbles a few steps towards them, teeth gritted, whining high in his throat the whole way.

“This’d better be good, Stilinski.” He threatens impotently, looking like he’s 30 seconds away from passing out.

“Yeah, yeah, fuzzface.” Stiles says, releasing one of Scott’s shoulders to stretch his arm out and grab Jackson’s bicep.

“ _Holy shit_ , McCall was right.” He says under his breath, whining ceasing at the contact.

“Alright, circle of trust, boys,” Stiles says, sliding his hands down until the 3 of them are holding hands, Stiles caught in the middle. “It isn’t homo unless we want it to be.”

Scott cracks up and Jackson looks like someone just shoved a lacrosse stick up his butt.

“What’re we gonna do, though?” Scott says, sobering. “ S’not like Stiles can just hold onto us for the rest of our lives…”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows at his best friend, getting an eye roll in return, before pursing his lips and answering seriously.

“I think we should go see him.”

Under the weight of the Scott and Jackson’s twin incredulous glares, Stiles hastens to elaborate. “No, no, hear me out! So this guy has, like, some freaky mind-control powers over you, right? But for some reason, I can interrupt it, or something.”

“It’s not so much interrupting,” Scott interjects, “It’s like…I can feel him, in my head, ‘cause he bit me or whatever, and he’s trying to make me a wolf. He’s got a hook in there somehow, and now he’s pulling it.” Stiles winces at the imagery, but Jackson nods. “But you’re here, and you pull me the other way. I trust you, and you help me stay human, stay _me_. Like…he’s the dictator that declared himself President, but you’re the guy I voted for?”

Stiles smiles, knocking his shoulder. “Thanks, Scotty. Anyway—the point is that I can help you guys break his spell or whatever, but _he_ might not know that. So we should try to keep that a secret for as long as possible, and make him think we’re all good little puppies going along with his plan, and then get him when his guard is down.”

Scott and Jackson exchange glances over his head and Jackson shrugs. “It could work.”

Figuring that’s the most enthusiastic approval he’s going to get, Stiles nods. “Great! Now who wants to play the most awkward game of Twister ever trying to get all three of us into the Jeep without losing contact?" 

X 

Scott winds up in the passenger seat, hand on Stiles’s right shoulder, with Jackson in the back, leaning forward to clasp Stiles’s left shoulder. Stiles turns where Scott tells him, taking the Jeep farther into the Preserve until they pull up at the charred remains of the Hale house. Scott and Jackson quickly let go of Stiles, groaning as they do so, and get out of the car, eyes flashing gold. Stiles follows, standing cautiously behind the other two, peeking over Jackson’s shoulder into the woods beyond.

Of course, because this is Stiles’s life, the Alpha appears behind them between one heartbeat and the next. Stiles screeches and spins around, Scott and Jackson whining softly behind him.

“What’s this?” The man practically purrs, the harsh light in his eyes at odds with the smirk on his lips. “Children lost in the woods?”

Stiles tenses, hands curling into fists. “No, just on our way to Granny’s house, Mr. Wolf.” He says, facetiously.

The smirk sharpens, fangs unsubtly bared, and the man raises a clawed hand to pluck at Stiles’s hoodie. “Well, you certainly look the part, _Little Red_.”

Stiles scoffs, flinching when the man flashes unsettlingly red eyes at him. He growls, eyes still glowing, and Scott and Jackson drop to their knees, shuddering.

“I am your _Alpha_ ,” He hisses, jovial mood of a moment ago completely gone, “and you will show me respect.”

“Sorry,” Stiles murmurs, shrinking back, not having to fake his terror in the least.

The man seems pleased by Stiles’s fear, expression going back to genial in a heartbeat. “My name is Peter. Scott, Jackson, I’ve given you a great gift. You’re more than human now—stronger, faster; better in every way—and given you a new family, a _pack_. Now all I ask in return is that you help me avenge my family.”

Stiles feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “You’re Peter _Hale_.”

“Yes, very astute, little one.” The man—Peter, Stiles reminds himself, Peter _Hale_ whose entire family minus his niece and nephew burned to death around him—seems amused and annoyed by his realization, so Stiles decides to stay quiet.

“As I was saying—an Alpha is stronger with a pack, and so I need you two to help me punish those responsible. We will train every day after school—yes, you too, Stiles—and when I decide you are ready, we will act. When I call, you answer. Understood?”

Scott and Jackson remain on their knees, eyes shining, only the rise and fall of their chests differentiating them from statues.

“Understood.” Stiles answers for them, concentrating on keeping his voice even and heartbeat steady.

“Good,” Peter smiles, his eyes still looking bloodthirsty, “now go home. We don’t want anyone missing you.”

Stiles nods, swallowing nervously, and fists a shirt in Scott and Jackson’s shirts, dragging them back to the Jeep, never turning his back on the predator before him.

X

The next few days fall into a sort of grim rhythm—Stiles gets used to living with a sort of low-level terror thrumming through him at all times. He wakes up, goes to school—everyone on edge, less and less of his classmates showing up every day—gets out, drives to the ruins of the Hale house with Scott and Jackson and is used as a practice dummy/gopher, except when Peter hands him a purple flower.

“Memorize that flower—how it looks, how it smells, even how it tastes, a little bit won’t kill you—and if you ever see it growing, rip it out and burn it.”

Despite Peter handing it over quickly, and striding away just as fast, Stiles sees the rash on the hand that Peter had held the flower with, sees how he favors that hand for the rest of the afternoon. Stiles looks it up when he gets home later— _Aconitum Noveboracense_ , also known as Northern Blue Monkshood, common name: _wolf’s bane_ —and bites his lip, the first hints of a plan forming in the back of his mind.

The routine is interrupted the next day when Lydia strides into school the next day all razor-sharp determination, Jackson hovering at her shoulder. She makes a beeline towards Scott and Stiles, her aura of barely-leashed malevolence making them cower back into the lockers despite her diminutive size.

“Jackson says,” She begins, narrowing her eyes at the two of them, “that you have something to tell me.”

“Oh, way to pass the buck there, you asshole!” Stiles exclaims at Jackson who shrugs, not looking the least bit abashed. “Um,” Stiles redirects his attention to the girl in front of him who was looking less patient with every passing second. “Maybe we could do this at lunch instead? It _really_ isn’t a conversation for the middle of a hallway.”

“Fine,” Lydia said shortly, lips pursed in a way that showed the depths of her displeasure at the delay. “The bleachers outside, just after the bell. Don’t be late.” And with a flip of her hair, she was gone, Jackson trailing along behind her.

“Dude,” Scott says, looking gob smacked, “I’m more scared of her than I am of Peter.”

“Scotty,” Stiles replies, mouth set in a grim line, “Something tells me that’s going to change.”

Lydia requires much less convincing about the existence of werewolves than Scott or even Jackson did. She listens to Stiles quietly while he runs through the whole story, then turns to Jackson and simply says “Change.”

He glances at Scott and Stiles, looking almost nervous, so they give him thumbs-ups and he slowly shifts so that his eyes are bright gold and his fangs and claws are out, face furry and vaguely bestial. Lydia takes it all in with a glance and then turns back to Stiles. “What are we doing about this?” And Stiles grins, feeling a true kinship with Lydia for the first time, rather than an awestruck sort of adoration.

“That, my dear, devious, Ms. Martin, is a very good question.”

When they head to the Preserve that afternoon, Lydia in tow, despite Jackson’s many complaints, Peter is already standing in the clearing, and he isn’t alone. A tall, skinny boy with a mop of blond curls stands just behind Peter, almost hidden by his body.

“Aw, shit.” Stiles mutters, clambering out of the Jeep, with Scott, Jackson, and Lydia following after him.

“It looks like today is just full of surprises!” Peter simpers, raking his eyes over Lydia. “Scott, Jackson, meet your new brother: Isaac.” The boy flashes his eyes at them, and they flash theirs back, none of them looking particularly fraternal.

Stiles steps in front of Lydia, trying to shield her from Peter’s intense scrutiny. “This is Lydia, you bit her the same night you bit Jackson.”

“How fascinating,” Peter says, circling around the pair of them like a shark. “You’re not a wolf, though—you didn’t turn. What on earth _are_ you, Lydia?”

“I—I don’t know,” Lydia says, managing to sound fearful but also breathless, like she’s impressed. Stiles is impressed with her acting skills. “But I want to find out.”

Peter grins, a hungry, feral thing that makes Stiles’s hair stand on end. “That’s just what I like to hear.”

Training after that is different; Scott, Jackson, and Isaac roughhouse while Stiles watches and Peter takes Lydia under his wing and tells her all about the supernatural. She acts completely besotted and enraptured with him—acts it so convincingly that Jackson nearly had a breakdown the first time he saw it. Scott and Stiles had to basically sit on him and talk him down for a half-hour before he could retract his claws and control his eyes. Peter is warier of Stiles, treating him more like an amusing toy, and Stiles tries to do all he can to keep any and all of Peter’s skepticism firmly pointed his way and away from Lydia. Isaac seems to actually be attached to Peter, follows him around like a duckling, doesn’t stray from him more than a few feet unless ordered to do so by Peter himself. After training one day Jackson reveals that Mr. Lahey used to beat Isaac before Peter apparently showed up one night and killed him, earning him Isaac’s devotion. Stiles supposes that it makes a twisted sort of sense, but he worries about the impact that batshit-crazy Peter is having on Isaac’s doubtlessly fragile mental state. 

Scott, Stiles, Jackson and Lydia hang out together almost every day—the wolves get antsy if they don’t do some sort of activity that culminates in some form of cuddling every few days. They take to watching movies all slumped together on the Stilinski’s couch, everyone taking turns to pick the movie. (Lydia cheats and makes Jackson pick movies for her all the time, so they all wind up watching _The Notebook_ way more than anyone, save Lydia, would have guessed.) Stiles and Lydia have been working on a plan to take Peter down for several weeks, but keep running into the same problem—Peter is just too strong. Whenever he joins in on training with the boys—the Betas, Peter calls them—he just throws them around like ragdolls, even three of them at once don’t faze him. Even if Stiles or Lydia could dose him with wolf’s bane, they have no idea how fast it would work, or how potent it would be, and they can’t afford to waste what would be their one and only chance at catching Peter unawares. It all boils down to them _not knowing_ , a state which drives both Stiles and Lydia insane. Eventually, they resolve to keep researching until the new moon two weeks away, figuring that at the very least there’ll be some cosmic irony there, even if they all wind up getting killed. Stiles and Lydia exchange a grim look when Stiles says that, acknowledging that as a real possibility, and redouble their efforts to find something that will kill an alpha werewolf.

The end of the first week towards their self-imposed deadline finds Stiles and Lydia with no more leads, getting increasingly stressed out and snappish, which basically makes Scott and Jackson ticking time bombs of rage and aggression. Peter has taken Isaac out of town with him to go hunt down leads—Stiles is not sure how literally this hunt is supposed to be, and shudders a little at the implications. Finally, Stiles puts a moratorium on researching ways to kill werewolves because it’s not getting them anywhere but one false step away from an assault charge, and declares that all four of them are going to get ice-cream at the stand a few miles outside of town. They all pile into the Jeep (despite Jackson’s muttering about it being unsanitary, or plebian, or something. _Whatever_ , jerkoff, you shouldn’t have gotten a fancy little 2-seater, then.) and drive, feeling lighter with every mile they put between them and Beacon Hills. It makes Stiles feel horribly guilty—his _dad_ is still in Beacon Hills, working himself to death trying to figure out what’s killing teenagers—but he can’t deny that all 4 of them look much happier with the town in their rearview mirror.

“I wish we could just leave,” Lydia sighs wistfully from the passenger seat, unconsciously echoing Stiles’s thoughts. “Just get into a car and drive until we don’t have to deal with a mass-murdering psychopath thinking he’s our second daddy.”

“Yeah,” Stiles replies, _meaning it_ , but knowing that they won’t, _can’t_ , it’s not in any of them to run away like that. He glances sideways at Lydia and dredges up crooked grin from somewhere. “But then our lives would be so damn _boring_.”

All three of them look at him askance; expressions of horror so comical that Stiles burst out laughing, making all of them start a cathartic, slightly hysterical sort of laugh.

15 minutes later they pull up in front of the ice-cream stand, peeling paint and thick, smooth ice-cream unchanged from when they were all children. They order and then lean against the Jeep, basking in the sun as they enjoy their desserts, all 4 of them relaxed for the first time in weeks. A black Camaro rolls into the lot a few spaces down from the Jeep, Stiles whistling lowly in appreciation. The driver gets out, a GQ specimen of a man with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a fantastic ass with dark hair and a beautifully stubbled jawline and Stiles whistles louder. Lydia jabs him in the side with her elbow, but winks at him to show her agreement. The wind changes direction, blowing towards them, and Scott and Jackson tense, beginning to growl harshly. Stiles and Lydia turn immediately, expressions demanding a reason for the growling, and Scott manages to retract his canines long enough to bite out “They’re _wolves_ ,” before devolving into snarls again. The driver of the Camaro—and a beautiful girl who was apparently riding with him—had both whipped around to look as soon as the growling started, but now they looked downright murderous, marching straight for Scott and Jackson. Pushing Lydia over to hold onto Jackson and try to calm him, Stiles stepped in front of everyone, intercepting the gorgeous, angry people before they could rip his friends’ heads off.

“Hello there!” He said, waving a hand in front of him in more of a bid to distract them than greet, “It looks like we have a few things to discuss with you fine people, which I think we should do _quietly_ —” he shoots a poisonous glance over his shoulder and Scott and Jackson fall gratifyingly silent, “—and somewhere other than here.”

The girl, who had come to a stop in front of Stiles, her male model companion hovering at her shoulder, looks Stiles over before nodding.

“Agreed. I’m Laura.”

“Stiles. Nice to meet you,” he replies, holding out his hand. She shook it and he continued talking. “There’s a picnic area 10 minutes down the road that’s almost certainly deserted at this time of day.”

“I know the place,” Laura says. “We’ll meet you there.” And they turn and walk back to the Camaro, driving off.

X

“What the hell was up with those kids?” Laura explodes the second the door of the Camaro closes behind her. “Where the hell did they come from?”

“I dunno,” Derek says, because it’s true, and because it’ll annoy his sister. “Weird that the human boy was acting like the Alpha though.”

Laura snorts unattractively through her nose. “Don’t front, baby bro, you were totally checking out the jailbait.”

“I was not!” Derek defends hotly, “I just noticed ‘cause he was unusual!”

“Sure, ‘unusual’. More like _one in a million_ , a _diamond in the rough_!”

Derek shoves her so hard she veers into the opposite lane, laughing all the while.

X

The Camaro is already parked in the lot when they pull up in the Jeep, its unfairly attractive occupants sprawled out across a picnic bench.

“God, would it kill him to have one imperfection?” Stiles grumbles under his breath, taking the key out of the ignition.

“He could be an ax murderer for all you know, Stiles. That’d be a pretty big imperfection.” Lydia flips her hair and slides gracefully out the door in a way that Stiles, even with years of practice, has never even come close to achieving. Stiles leads the group of them over to the picnic table, Lydia at his right shoulder, Scott and Jackson abreast behind her.

“So I know we exchanged names,” Stiles says, as they stop in front of the table, “But I figure proper introductions are still in order. I’m Stiles Stilinski. This,” he steps to the side and gestures, “is Lydia Martin and those two,” he waves over his shoulder, “are Scott McCall and Jackson Whittemore.” Lydia manages a perfectly civil, if remote, smile, while Scott and Jackson remain taciturn, brows furrowed distrustfully. Thankfully, the girl, Laura, Stiles remembers, seems to find their lack of manners amusing rather than insulting.

“Right. I’m Laura Hale, and this is my brother, Derek.”

Stiles’s heart kicks into overdrive. “I’m sorry, did you say Laura _Hale_?” He squeaks out incredulously as Scott and Jackson start growling anew, stepping backwards.

“I—yes?” Laura looks incredibly confused, glancing between the snarling boys and the visibly terrified Stiles.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Stiles breathes, “Are you guys in on it too? Did he call you here?”

“In on what? And did who call us?” Laura asks, patience waning.

“Your fucking batshit crazy uncle’s plan to murder everyone!” Jackson snaps, literally, gnashing his teeth at her.

“ _What?_ Our uncle has been in a coma ever since the fire!”

“Yeah, well, apparently not anymore,” Jackson says, nearly hissing with rage. “Since he’s the one that bit me, mauled my girlfriend, and _murdered my best friend right in front of me_.”

“Laura,” Derek says quietly, pale as a sheet, “He’s not lying.”

“Of course we’re not!” Lydia cuts in, indignant.

“Guys,” Stiles interjects firmly, seeing the sick, stricken look on Laura and Derek’s faces. “Enough. They didn't know.” He sits on the bench, across the table from Laura, and Lydia sits next to him. “God knows I’m sorry you two had to find out like this, but there’s something very wrong with your uncle.”

The whole story takes about 20 minutes to tell, with plenty of interruptions from Scott, Jackson, and Lydia, and by the end of it Laura looks like she’s in shock.

“So Peter’s away right now with another boy our age, Isaac, who seems to actually think that Peter is the second coming of Christ. He’ll be coming back in two days, so now would be the best time to come into Beacon Hills without him immediately knowing about it.” Stiles trails off for a moment, but then rallies. “You should know—we plan to kill him. He’s systematically killing the entire teenage population of Beacon Hills, and turning a select few into his own private army to go murder some more people. I can’t just let him go, not like this, and he can’t be reasoned with, so that’s really our only option. I wouldn’t ask for your help, he is your family—or was, anyway—but I’m asking for your…cooperation, I guess?”

Laura just puts her head in her hands, breathing raggedly, while Derek stares at him inscrutably, one hand on his sister’s back. Stiles just waits, breathing steadily. She rallies a few minutes later, voice sounding wrecked with emotion when she speaks.

“No, whether he’s lost his mind or not, he’s our family, our responsibility. Whatever happens, we’ll help you deal with him.”

Stiles reaches across the table slowly, giving Laura plenty of time to pull away, before placing his hand on top of hers and squeezing gently.

“I’m sorry.” He says sincerely.

She looks him in the eye and manages a wan smile. “Thank you.”

X

The atmosphere in the Camaro is suffocating, grief and anger and regret—Laura didn’t want to believe what the teenagers had told her, but she knew for a fact that they weren’t lying, none of their heartbeats so much as stuttered. She digs her claws into her palms to ground of herself, the scent of blood cutting through the scent of misery, making Derek whine involuntarily. They drive all the way into town, past the familiar landmarks of their childhood, through the Preserve, all the way up the overgrown drive to the ruins of their house, their _home_ , in silence, broken only by the slam of the Camaro’s doors as they get out. Laura is a wolf before the door is fully shut, clothes falling to the ground around her. Derek is close behind, pausing to pull his clothes off before following his instincts and falling on all four paws. Then Laura and Derek mourn, running through the trees that still bear the scratches of their long-dead-family’s claws, howling for the uncle that they found and lost all in one day.

X

On the other side of town, Stiles and his friends sit bolt upright on the couch, movie forgotten, as they hear the eerie, heartbroken, howls coming from the preserve. Stiles frowns, feeling guilty for asking a niece to kill her uncle, one of the few living family members she has left, but knowing that it had to be done. He looks around at his friends’ faces he knows that he would do much worse to ensure their survival. Thinking about having Laura and Derek on their side when they confront Peter makes a tiny thrill of excitement cut through the haze of sadness.

“Lydia,” he says, realization slowly dawning on him, “We just inadvertently found one of the only known things to kill an Alpha werewolf.”

She narrows her eyes at him, considering, before smirking, having come to the same conclusion as him.

“Another Alpha.”

X

The next day all of them cut school and drive straight into the Preserve, Jackson and Scott still not really trusting Laura and Derek enough to leave them unsupervised, and Stiles and Lydia wanting to talk strategy. Derek vocally disapproves.

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t skip school.” All four of them startle at the sound of his voice when it comes, hidden as he is in the shadows of the wreckage of his house.

“Oh I’m sorry, Mr. Truancy Officer, but I thought that an unhinged, bloodthirsty Alpha werewolf might actually be more of a threat to my wellbeing than missing a day of Chem.” Stiles rolls his eyes dramatically, staring Derek down.

Derek’s cheeks pink almost imperceptibly and he glares, grumbling about smartass kids under his breath, before sending up a short howl to call Laura back to the house. She bursts through the tree line moments later, dark brown coat shiny, pink tongue lolling out of her mouth in a wolfy smirk at her brother.

“Oh wow,” Stiles breathes softly, “You’re a lot less ugly than your uncle.”

Laura barks out a short laugh before shifting back, unselfconscious in her nudity, shrugging on a Henley her brother hands her when the teenagers’ heartbeats go through the roof. “Sometimes the shift reflects what’s within,” Laura says in the air of someone quoting an oft-heard expression, eyes on the ground.

Stiles makes an interested noise and stores that away to think about later, the possibility of other types of were-creatures. He turns his mind back to the matter at hand with some difficulty. “We thought that it would probably be a good idea to come talk tactics before Peter gets back and blows the surprise out of the water.”

Laura cocks her head slightly, “You know he’s going to smell our scent all over this clearing when he gets back, right?”

“I have a plan for that, actually,” Stiles says, pulling a baggie out of his pocket. He shakes it, sending the purple dust inside swirling. “I’ve been slowly stockpiling as much wolf’s bane as I can without Peter noticing. He once told me to rip out the plants and burn them if I found any, so I figure if I burn some here the scent might be enough to cover yours, or at least be a plausible explanation of any odd smells.”

“That…might actually work,” Derek says softly, staring at Stiles.

The boy scoffs, misinterpreting the stare. “Tone down the skepticism there, scruffy. The eensie weensie human can have good ideas too!” He turns his attention back to Laura, who had been stifling laughter at her brother. “So we,” he gestures between himself and Lydia, “had a few ideas we wanted to run by you…”

The next few hours are spent with Stiles directing Scott and Jackson and trying to coordinate the most effective attack with the added manpower of Derek and Laura. The two younger boys are actually good partners for each other, Jackson attacks like a berserker, leaving himself completely open to counter-attacks, while Scott prefers to defend and dart around, wincing whenever he gets a hit in. Stiles keeps them moving, running and jumping, staying together, and acting as support for and a distraction from Derek and Laura, who will be the real force behind the attack. Watching the kids work together, moving instinctually at Stiles’s prompting, Derek is struck again by how strong they are, these kids that got dragged into the deep end of the supernatural world and came out on the other side biting and clawing. He sticks close to his sister, the two of them moving in a sync that comes from spending your entire life alongside someone. Together, the siblings are much stronger than the Betas, which is only to be expected, but the boys get more hits in than expected, directed unerringly by Stiles’s surprisingly keen eye for tactics and weak spots. By the time the sky is turning pink they have the bones of a plan, and enough familiarity with each other that it just might work. Stiles stands in the middle of the clearing, bag of wolf’s bane and a lighter held in his hands.

“Alright, Peter and Isaac should be back around mid-morning tomorrow. Lydia, our master actress, will go meet them at the edge of town, saying that there’s something in the woods, and when Peter—hopefully—races off, take that opportunity to knock out Isaac somehow.”

Lydia smirks, looking plenty wolfish in the fading light. “I have my ways.”

“Scott, Jackson, and I will be here, waiting. We’ll all start shouting, rush him, try to distract and disorient him for as long as it takes you two to circle around behind him, and then,” he swallows around the lump in his throat telling him that they could all die tomorrow, “we fight.”

X

It’s 10:30 when Scott and Jackson sit up from where they had been lying on Stiles’s bed, whining in the way that means Peter is nearby. Stiles and Lydia exchange nods, everyone hugging before they get up and trudge downstairs, nerves weighing down their feet.

“Hey,” Stiles says softly, getting everyone’s attention. “We’ve made it through this far, we’re going to survive taking this psychotic asshole down too.”

They all smile and bump shoulders, heading outside. Lydia gets into Jackson’s Porsche, heading to the entrance of Beacon Hills where Peter will be coming through, purposefully mussing her hair and smudging her makeup to add to the ruse. Stiles, Scott, and Jackson pile into the Jeep and head to the preserve, the latter two half wolfed out already. They reach the clearing around the Hale house and get out, Stiles rummaging around in the trunk and pulling out a heavy metal baseball bat.

“Dude,” Scott says, nose wrinkling, “What the hell is that?”

“I may just be a puny human, bro, but that doesn’t mean I have to be totally defenseless.” Stiles replies, running a hand down the bat. Stiles had looked up protective runes on the internet and scratched them into the shaft of the bat, and then made a solution out of aconite and soaked the bat in it for several days, hoping that even processed the plant would still be effective against werewolves. Judging from the way that Scott and Jackson are eyeing it like a poisonous snake, Stiles assumes that something worked. Leaning the bat up against a nearby tree, in a shady hollow, Stiles hopes that his plan will work and he’ll have time to grab it before being gutted. He glances into the trees before him, looking for a hint of Laura or Derek and sees a flash of blue eyes to his left. Derek, he deduces, knowing that Laura’s eyes are Alpha red. Rolling his eyes lightly and smiling a little he moves back to where his friends are standing, feeling better for having seen the older man, however briefly.

Moments later, Scott and Jackson stiffen, wincing, and Stiles stands straighter, knowing that Peter is coming. He concentrates on the possibility that he might die, that Scott might die, that Lydia might already be dead, and lets his heartbeat ramp up, sweat beading on his forehead. He starts breathing heavily, feeling more than seeing Scott and Jackson transforming next to him. The minute he sees a flash of movement from the mouth of the clearing he throws himself in that direction, hands latching onto the older man, yelling “Peter!” at the top of his lungs.

The man whips his head around, gripping his arms tightly and looking at Stiles with confusion and no small amount of suspicion. Stiles doesn’t give him a chance to speak.

“Oh, god, Peter, you have to help us! I was in the woods with Lydia burning a patch of that flower you showed me when all of a sudden these two _wolves_ burst out of the trees,” he gasps, heart galloping in his chest, “and so we screamed and ran, and I managed to throw the rest of the flowers I had in their faces and we got into the clearing and Scott and Jackson ran up and held them off while Lydia got away to find you, but then they went back into the trees and we don’t know where they are, and _I don’t want to die_ —” Stiles chokes a little at the end, real fear making his breath come in pants, adrenaline surging. 

The moment Peter loosens his grip, turning his senses to the forest around him, Scott and Jackson leap forward, shoving Peter backwards, away from Stiles. A bone-shaking roar rips through the trees directly behind him and then Laura is leaping out, red eyes flaring, jaws snapping at Peter’s throat. Stiles spins and runs for his bat as Scott and Jackson slash at Peter from behind and Derek flanks him, herding him into his sister’s claws. Peter roars himself, rage making him slip back into the ugly, misshapen, nightmare version of Laura’s beautiful wolf. Scott and Jackson stop dead at the roar, trembling, fighting the call of their Alpha. Stiles rushes over to them, knocking Jackson’s shoulder with his and rubbing briefly at Scott’s back. They come back to themselves with a shudder, leaping forward to help Derek distract from Laura. Stiles goes with them, swinging his bat wide whenever he sees an opening, cracking bone and singeing flesh and fur whenever he makes contact.

The fight seems to be going in their favor, Stiles thinks, as he watches the wolves slowly, systematically wounding Peter more, slowing him. Then, suddenly, Peter’s eyes flash and he gets a little bigger, a little more savage-looking, and goes into some sort of berserker state, no longer bothering with strategy or defense, just ripping into anything that he can reach. He sends Derek sailing into a tree, the snap of bones echoing in the clearing and making Stiles feel ill. Derek slumps, motionless, and Stiles feels cold, terrified. Jackson is next, a chunk of his side taken out by Peter’s claws, he drops to his knees, throat inadvertently bared, and Scott has to step in front of him, Peter’s claws tearing deep furrows in his back, to prevent Jackson from losing his head. Stiles darts in, dragging back to the trees as best he can, out of the line of fire, before turning back to watch Laura, left alone to fight the monster her uncle has become. Even Laura’s Alpha strength seems to pale in comparison to Peter’s sheer viciousness, wounds slowly accumulating. Stiles panics, looking around on the ground for anything that could help, and sees a single wolf’s bane flower that must have fallen out of his baggie earlier.

Picking it up, he folds it into his left palm, fisting his hand tightly around it. Holding his bat in his right he walks right up to Peter where he has Laura cornered against a tree and brings the bat down as hard as he can on his back leg. Peter snarls, whirling around, and Stiles smacks him across the face, walking backwards, away from Laura. Stiles rolls, dodging Peter’s lunging bites and keeps whaling on him with the bat, aiming for his eyes and his face, hissing at the deep scratches that Peter leaves on his arms and chest when he’s too slow to sidestep. Stiles glances over at where Laura has managed to get to her feet, back in human form again, and lifts his arms out to either side, taunting Peter further. The crazed wolf, incapable of rational thought, lunges forward, jaws spread wide. Stiles acts quickly, shoving his left arm forward, fist going into the beast’s maw and down into its throat, releasing the flower into his throat.

Stiles bites back a scream at the feeling of Peter’s fangs buried deep in his arm, fire running up his arm as Peter starts choking and retching around his fist.

“My, what a big mouth you have, you asshole.” Stiles manages to hiss at him before Laura appears over his shoulder, raking her claws across the front of his throat. The sickly, red light leaves his eyes and he collapses, jaws slack around Stiles’s arms.

Stiles laughs somewhat hysterically, breathing stuttering as he pulls his bloody arm out of Peter’s corpse. He’s dizzy, maybe a little faint, but he thinks he sees black goop coming out of the punctures on his arm instead of blood. He tries to lift it closer to his face but is too weak, slumps back down to the ground instead.

“Stiles,” a voice is saying insistently, he knows that voice, he thinks. “Stiles! Stay with me, you’re going to be alright.” He sees long brown hair and red eyes but they’re gone when he blinks. He tries again, this time opening his eyes to a little spark of flame. He muzzily wonders why someone’s lighting a cigarette right now before he feels hands on his arm and then he is consumed by the worst, searing pain he has ever felt in his life. He arches up, back bowing, and screams, clawing at the hands still holding his arm. He feels like death, like something is being burned out of him. He turns to the side and vomits, but the texture is wrong, like tar, sticky and black. He feels hot, like he’s burning up and he whimpers, feeling cool hands brushing his hair back. He blearily thinks ‘Mom,’ before finally passing out, the darkness a welcome relief.

X

The next time Stiles opens his eyes it’s to his own ceiling; still plastered with the glow-in-the-dark stars that he and Scott were obsessed with when they were 6. He’s warm, too warm, and struggles under his blankets, stilling when he feels several sets of limbs clamp down on top of him, keeping him right where he is.

“Whuzzah? He manages, mouth and brain fuzzy, spitting long red hair out of his mouth.

“You’re home and safe—everyone’s fine.” Comes a soft, deep voice from his right, at his desk. Turning his head is a herculean task but Stiles manages it, taking in Derek in his desk chair.  
“How long was I out?” He slurs, tongue tripping over itself.

Derek glances at the clock on his desk. “A little over 13 hours, your friends told your dad you got a stomach flu. You were bitten by Peter and rejected it—it made you sick. Laura flushed it out with wolf’s bane, though, so you’ll be fine with some rest.”

“Everyone’s fine?” Stiles manages, already feeling sleep dragging him under again.

“Everyone’s fine.” He hears Derek confirm, something that sounds fond in his tone. “You saved everyone.”

X

Life after that settles into a new routine—one infinitely better than running combat drills with a serial killer. When the teenage murders stop the Sheriff stops looking so pinched and worn thin, sleeping and eating regularly again. Derek and Laura officially move back into town, renting a big studio apartment and giving Stiles a key.

“For emergencies only!” Laura says, faux stern, with a wink.

Isaac comes around with Peter dead, latching himself onto Scott with the same single-minded devotion, but occasionally showing hints of a snarky sense of humor that makes Stiles hopeful that he’ll recover alongside the rest of them. Stiles heals completely in a couple of days, Laura says it’s thanks to his pack. _His_ pack, he crows, as Jackson rolls his eyes, Scott beams sunnily and Lydia smacks the back of his head lightly. ‘What do you know,’ he thinks to himself, looking around at his friends, somehow against all odds whole and happy, ‘this whole werewolf thing might not be so bad after all.’


End file.
